mediumfeature

The Champions League final is Saturday, as Real Madrid takes on neighbours Atletico Madrid at the San Siro in Milan. It’s a classic encounter of an attack-minded Real side against a tough, disciplined Atletico squad with a talent for shutting down opponents. This is a rematch of the 2014 final, which Real won in dramatic […]

The annual spring bloom of microscopic algae coinciding with the migration of hundreds of thousands of western sandpipers could pose a roadblock for Port Metro Vancouver’s planned $2-billion expansion at Roberts Bank in South Delta.

People have been telling me for years that I really ought to see the lush tropical paradise that is Hawaii. They knew I had been to Brazil, Jamaica, South Africa and southern Italy, where I had seen all sorts of exciting botanical wonders.

I get excited when I go into a restaurant and everyone is eating the same thing, either because the restaurant only serves one dish, or because it is the dish to eat there. Sopa Azteca falls into the first category.

Canada’s trade with South Korea received a shot in the arm recently, when Seoul lifted its temporary ban on Canadian beef and veal imports, leaving only two foreign markets still closed after a case of mad cow disease last February. Officials lifted the ban on Dec. 30, reopening what had been Canada’s sixth-largest export market for beef. Canadian beef exports to South Korea were valued at $26 million in 2014, about 1.4 per cent of total Canadian exports to that country of $1.9 billion.

The Plastic Bank, a Vancouver-based social enterprise that encourages people living in poverty to collect and exchange waste plastic for goods, services and cash, has won the Sustainia Community Award at the COP21 Climate Conference in Paris. The international award, given to a solution, technology or initiative with significant potential to build a more sustainable future, recognized the Plastic Bank’s solution to alleviate extreme poverty while cleaning up ocean plastic and reducing new plastic production. The award was founded by sustainability think-tank Sustainia in collaboration with Regions20, a non-profit environmental coalition of regional governments (including B.C.), and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Vancouver Writers Fest opens next week with an Oct. 20 event hosted by Vancouver writer Caroline Adderson and featuring David Constantine, an author who has published award-winning poetry and short stories in the United Kingdom for 30 years, but who is just getting published in North America this year.

This week’s Trans-Pacific Partnership deal is a good one — indeed, it’s essential — if Canada is to continue to prosper through trade. But one narrow aspect of this broad deal the Conservatives are clamouring to take credit for is, in fact, a massive sellout of consumers’ interests. It’s the supply management provision that “saves” — a better verb is “ossifies” — Canada’s dairy and poultry monopolies that entrench inefficiencies and drive up both production costs and prices.

A tentative agreement reached on a sweeping Pacific Rim trade pact is expected to be a net benefit to British Columbia, which already has extensive trade links with Asia. Most business and industry leaders here said had Canada — and British Columbia — not been part of the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership, it would likely have lost market share and faced the threat of becoming marginalized in the growing Asian economy.

The directors of films from France and the Philippines have been named the winners of Vancouver International Film Festival’s inaugural Best New Director award. The award goes to Axelle Ropert, who directed Miss and the Doctors (France), described by the jury in a press release as a “beautifully realized romantic drama, intelligent and full of love for all its characters.”

A convicted killer who escaped from a minimum-security Mission prison last August has been found more than 8,000 kilometres away in Peru. Norman Gilbert Riel, 42, was picked up by local authorities last week in an upscale suburb of Lima called Miraflores.

SPARKLING PLENTY: The garden at the Canuck Place Children’s Hospice looked extra-bright recently. It wasn’t just the oversized sparklers 150 folk waved there. Rather, the Robert L. Conconi Foundation’s Victoria Conconi had pledged to match $200,000 in donations made to Canuck Place’s million-dollar 20th-anniversary campaign by July 31. Addressing the families of 600 youngsters the Vancouver and Abbotsford facilities now serve, founding clinical nurse Brenda Eng said: “Never be afraid to tell your story.” Alysone Martel heeded that when speaking of son Griffin, 12, being a patient since age 18 months. Although care there is primarily palliative, Alysone smilingly said: “We may graduate.” She meant that Griffin could leave, alive, at Canuck Place’s mandatory age 19, when some of his contemporaries will begin earning seven-figure salaries from its namesake hockey club.

ONLY YOU: The B.C. Women’s Hospital usually matches Toronto’s Mount Sinai, with 7,200 babies born yearly and 7,700 expected in 2015. Even so, many believe that neonatal care is part of neighbouring B.C. Children’s Hospital’s mandate. With $12 million of B.C. Women’s $17-million newborn ICU campaign raised, chair Tamara Taggart clarified matters at an “evening of awareness” that realty marketer Bob Rennie hosted on his Wing Sang Building’s rooftop patio. Those babies don’t arrive at 75-minute intervals, healthy and at full term, as hospital president Dr. Jan Christilaw and foundation CEO Laurie Clarke might wish. “You see infants hanging on to life, minute by minute, second by second,” major donor Leslie Diamond said.

How could the Port of Vancouver be misused by organized crime? It’s not that hard, according to encrypted messages intercepted by police that detailed an exchange between one Vancouver man and the Ontario-based leader of a major international drug ring three years ago.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.